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Pagans and Christians in the Fourth Century (Notes:34)

Julian the Apostate: his reign was for only
two years and though he died in his early thirties, he was a
hardcore—“fundamentalist,” we could say—Pagan who tried his best to stem the
Christian tide and revive Paganism.

In 357 one of the most dramatic shifts in
governmental policy came with the storage of the Alter of Victory, placed in a
Roman senate house by Augustus himself, when a Christian emperor ordered the
pagan artifact withdrawn.

Emperor Julian, a relative of Constantine,
would rule from 361-63 and though would not call himself an apostate, was
reverently opposed to all things Christian. While during his youth he was
sympathetic to Christian teachings, later, under the teachings of Pagan
instructors, he would side fervently with Pagan rites. In 355 he is appointed
‘ceaser,’ a junior emperor in the Western half of the Roman Empire; as a junior
assistant, he does well for himself and is victorious in his military
adventures in Gaul—modern day France—as he drives the Germanic tribes back
across the border. Some years later, in 361, Julian becomes emperor of the
whole realm when his contender for the throne dies unexpectedly on his way to
confront Julian during the short lived civil war.

Julian was very flamboyant about his
paganism; he would hold large-scale animal sacrifices to commemorate the death
of his political rival for the throne, something which hadn’t been seen in
public for several decades. As another symbolic gesture, he would grow a
beard—Socrates like—as a link connecting him with the great pagan philosophers;
from this effort many treatises are written, both for and against Julian’s
beard. Julian, being sensitive to some of the criticisms which Christians lob
his way, writes a whole book in defense of his beard.

Julian, however, does many non-symbolic,
practical, actions as a pagan emperor. For one, he finds the altar of victory,
the one that had been placed in storage, and moves it back into the Roman
senate house. Writing extensively on the philosophical matters of religion and
the problems of the world, Julian declares all forms of religious worship to be
legal—a cynical move designed with the hopes of the Christian sects destroying
one another now that they were legal entities.

As a ruler, however, Julian understood that
he could not turn back the clock. What had transpired underneath Constantine
could not be reversed. So he made reforms; Julian understood that there had
been specific reasons for why Christianity had been attractive and so he makes
a carrot and stick approach: the carrot is social benefits while the stick is
punishments; the idea was to make Christianity a uncomfortable religion to
openly practice while paganism an attractive option.

Paganism, before Julian, had been
decentralized. There was nothing like an ecclesiastical hierarchy which
dominated Christian organization. But Julian understood that this tight form of
organization was a strong attribute to Christian usurpage of pagan power.
Julian drew up plans for inventing a pagan church that had operated in the same
fashion as Christian churches: priests would be full time, like in the
Christian churches, devoted exclusively to their religious nature, and serve
the local population in the same manner of Christianity.

Another one of Julian’s idea for pagan
reform was to over-haul the idea of philanthropy. Before Julian, both paganism
and Christianity had a strong impulse on charity but the two concepts were very
different. Roman philanthropy was geared toward entertainment (circuses, baths,
gladiator shows, etc.) and undertaken exclusively by the wealthy; everything,
however, was wholly self-serving to bring honor to those who were charitable.
This is in strong contrast to Christian philanthropy where the obligation to
give fell on every member of the congregation is expected to give financial
assistance to the destitute; Julian’s plan, accordingly, was to make this form
of Christian charity the defining aspect of pagan charity.

Unfortunately, Julian ambitious plans for a
pagan church and re-amped charity structure modeled after Christianity (the
carrots), never came to fruition. The sticks, however, costing far less than
the carrots, did come into existence.

Julian withdraws financial support for
Christian churches and instead redirects it to pagan temples which he re-opens
throughout the Empire. He also overlooks pro-pagan violence against Christians.
But his most controversial policy was regarding education. In 362 he forbid
Christians from the teaching of Greek literature; it should be pagan who teach
pagan works. Christians could teach their own scriptures at their own schools
if they so chose. What this aimed to enforce was a driving of Christians from
the teaching profession entirely; Greek literature, after all, was at the heart
of Roman culture and passing tests regarding said literature was the only route
to a good social standing. By decreeing that only pagans could teach Roman
texts, Julian was effectively banishing Christian educators to the margins of
professionalism. (Some Christians, desperate to remain teaching, went as far as
to re-write the whole of the Holy Bible with an emphasis on comedy, tragedy, or
even Homeric epic in order to comply with Julian’s decrees.) At the end,
however, Julian’s short life prevented these educational, religious, and
philanthropic reforms from taking root or even beginning at all.

Julian’s reign was one which was disliked
even by pagans, and indeed, everyone.

By the time of Julian’s rule, the Empire
had been ruled by several generations of Christian rulers, it had been, in
other words, the norm and people had acclimated their attitudes respectively.
Julian’s reforms were very brute and so constituted a radical shift in societal
expectation and operation. Some of Julian’s opposition rested on supporters
being uncertain of how Julian’s reforms and support would be considered with
the next emperor in power, and so they decided to lay low for a while and wait
and see how things turned out. Other opposition came from the personality of
Julian—well educated pagans and pagan philosophers found Julian very
ostentatious; they thought his beard silly, his large-scale animal sacrifices
unseemly and pandering, while his attempts at making paganism great again and
intellectually stimulating a pale, sad attempt at revitalizing their religion.

Julian understood that the moral force
which would act as a fulcrum to him becoming more popular in the Empire, and
thus able to gain the popular support needed for his reforms to take root, lied
within military conquest. He had some success in Gaul in the 350s and so was
known as a competent commander, but he had a problem—Rome had no real enemies.
So he launched an invasion of the Persian Empire, the long-time Roman rivals.
Julian amassed the largest army in Roman history and invaded the Persian Empire
in 363. The entire undertaking was a fiasco with Julian spending much time
meandering around Mesopotamia before ultimately being killed by a spear in
battle.

Of course, there was some debate on who
killed Julian. Christians claimed that it was a secret Christian solider of his
army who killed him; pagans claimed that he was killed by the enemy (so as to
not give Christians the satisfaction), while others held obtuse opinions
besides, like a pagan member of his own army with very bad aim. Regardless, the
invasion was a debacle and we can only guess how Julian’s reign would have
turned out had his invasion been a success and had his policies been enacted
with gusto, with force.

At the end, Julian’s office extended the
imperial office to another pagan but this pagan declined in taking up the
mantle of the imperial office; he thought that a pagan emperor would not be
very welcomed, so he turned it down, thus allowing the next in line, a
Christian, to take up the mantle of the imperial office once more. Once in
office, the Christian emperor(s) restores the financial benefits which had been
stripped from the Christian churches, he withdraws state support of pagan
temples, and lifts the restriction of the teaching of Greek texts, while the
Altar of Victory is placed back in storage. However, the one aspect of Julian’s
rule which would persevere for some time would be his decree concerning the
legality of all religions; it would not be until 391-2, with the passage of a
series of laws which make paganism illegal, that Julian’s legacy is fully
effaced. Thusly, Julian the Apostate was destined to be the last pagan emperor,
while his various enactments are repealed after his death, marking the end of
an odd period of Roman history.

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Lately, I was browsing around online and found another handy resource for aspiring medievalists.

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The site has links to an extensive book shop, scholarly journals, as well as a free download. See below for links.

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